Calorie Surplus Confusion

Bigger Stronger Leaner Christian Thibaudeau Coaching
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I know a calorie surplus is needed to gain some muscle mass but i just can’t seem to get it right or maybe it’s just a mental thing.

I finished the Eternal Warrior program and ended at 175 with a nice 8 pack. I could tell the muscles were a little deflated but it was a look I was happy with.

I decided to run the program again but this time at a calorie surplus of 400. In just a few weeks I didn’t like how I felt or looked. Seems to be all fat gain but I don’t want to run the program another 12 weeks without feeling like I’m not accomplishing something .

Is there a point at which maintenance is a goal you just have to accept? I’m I still gaining muscle at maintenance calories where my body fat is actually still the surplus? (Body fat at 12- 14% before surplus and I’m 48 years old training for about 8 years)

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Well, I doubt that you gained a lot of fat in "just a few weeks’ from a mere 400kcals/day surplus. What most likely happen is water retention along with some fat gain. But I agree, it still looks bad.

The issue is that once you’ve seen yourself super lean, any other conditioning level will look bad/fat to you.

Is it okay to simply “maintain”. Well, sure. If you love the way you look and would be happy just to stay there, I see no issue with that.

That having been said, you can still build muscle eating at maintenance level. It will be a much slower process but it can still happen if you train properly. So you can maintain your condition while very slowly adding some muscle

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